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"Ms. Richards?"
I stand up from the cold metal chair attached to the walls of the sanitarium located at the waiting area beside the doctor's place. I am wearing my usual patient clothing and the slippers I've been wearing for almost two years now.
I walk towards the door of Dr. Morgan's office. It is Saturday afternoon, basically after lunch and we have this routine where we have a weekly check-up with Dr. Morgan. This is one of my favorite day of the week because, besides of being surrounded with lunatics all day-long, I get to talk to a sane person. Which is the doctor.
I'm not saying that I am so sane-like-I-do-not-belong in here (in which maybe I really don't), maybe I have issues but at the very least, I don't talk to myself and laugh incredulously to myself while walking through the asylum corridors.
Dr. Morgan greets me with a warm smile as I sit on the chair across her desk. She grabs a folder, with my name written on top of it. She opens it and gets her pen resting on a circle holder placed on her desk along with few more other pens.
"So how are you feeling now, Scarlett?," she asks first hand. That's the first thing she always asks to her patients, I figured.
"I'm fine," I answer, more like lied. Because basically, I'm still a bit freaked out about Annika's lash out on me yesterday on breakfast table. Dr. Morgan nods writing something on the clean sheet of paper, "So how are you after one of the patients' lash out? I heard she was aiming on you."
I nod my head, fidgeting with my fingers, "Well, I'm fine. At least she wasn't on the breakfast table today."
"Don't worry we've already taken care of it," Dr. Morgan assuringly tells me. I adjust myself on the seat and look up at the ceiling. The whole room is painted white, as what every other rooms in here looks like. There's an abstract painting hanging on the wall next to the door. I've never noticed it before. Maybe it is new.
"So did you sleep well last night?" Dr. Morgan asks snapping me out of my observing-mind. I turn my attention back on her, "Yes."
I don't know what Dr. Morgan referred to as 'we've taken care of it'. Like how did they took care of it? I mean, I've heard some nurses gossip about some 'terrifying things' happening inside the sanitarium. But I have no idea what those terrifying thing are. They say it's about disciplining the patients, keeping them grounded. But I've never really given much thought about it. Besides, I don't think that's any of my concern.
"I've got to take some tests on you," Dr. Morgan announces and then pulls out her stethoscope from her desk drawer. She checked my vital signs, let me stand on the weighing scale and other usual test every Saturday and after that she leads me outside the clinic.
I am escorted by a nurse and even though patients are allowed to stay at the sanitarium yard after every check-up during Saturday, I asked my nurse to take me back in my cell. I'm not really up for staying out in the yard today. All I want to have is an alone time with myself and my bed. I am so sick of the daily routines, boring things that I have to face as a patient in this mental institution.
I feel like there's nothing wrong with myself but I was stuck here, probably for the rest of my life along with the other patients in here. I wonder what would it be like to live outside, as a normal teenager.
The nurse held out his key card and then ushers me in. Before he could close the door behind me, I spun on my heels taking his arms gently. He looks taken aback and quite scared. I mentally rolled my eyes having the urge to say I-am-not-gonna-hurt-you-stop-being-such-a-wuss but instead I say, "don't worry I just have a question."
He crosses his arms over his chest relaxing on his position. If I didn't know any better, I would think I have a mental spasm in my eye because I rolled my eyes repeatedly inside my head, "Go shoot"
"Do I seem normal?," I start, "I mean compared to the other patients in here."
I can see by the look on his face that he isn't expecting this question from a mental patient. But then he clears his throat and looks at me intently, if we aren't inside an asylum right now, and if he isn't a nurse and I am not a patient, I would probably think he is checking me out.
"Well, you look kind of normal," he says, "but other patients tend to look normal on the outside, don't get me wrong."
This time, I couldn't contain the urge to roll my eyes at him anymore and so I did and then I turn back to my room. I can feel that he isn't closing the door yet but then after a few moments, when I finally sat at the foot of my bed, I heard him close it.
I don't know why, but as soon as I felt that the nurse is a good feet away from my room, I started sobbing. I sobbed because mainly 1. what would I expect? once you're a mental patient, everybody would automatically etch it in their brains 2. there's still hope inside of me that somehow, I am normal from every patient in here 3. and now that hope is broken.
Now I know why they say hope breeds eternal misery.
I don't even know where that came from, I just heard it from the former patient next door. She died a few years ago. I heard her say it in one of our therapy sessions every Wednesday, which now they moved during Thursday afternoon.
I lean back against the wall and wiped my tear stained cheeks. I tried racking up my brains, thinking of the possible reason on how I ended up here. Scanning through every corners of my brain, wishing I know what had I done for me to end up in here. I wish I have answers, but as much as I racked up my brain for any details, I can't picture out what had happened eight years back. I don't know what led me here, what pushed my parents to abandon me here in this institution.
Am I really insane?
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